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Prologue

Problems

Micheala

Soon as I park my car, Thebes, my childhood footman, opens my door.

“Good evening, Princess,” he says, using my old title.

I cringe. No matter how many times I remind my parents’ staff that I’ve denounced my title, they refuse to call me anything else.

Thebes holds out his hand. I take the offered hand. He helps me out of my Lamborghini Huracan Technico. I rarely get to drive this car or the other fifteen I have similar to it. A two hundred-thousand-dollar car doesn’t match the budget of a realtor. Not even one as good as I am.

I make my way up the cobblestone circular driveway toward my parent’s house.

“Princess,” Albert, my family butler, says in greeting as he stands on the front step.

I stare up at the giant gaudy mansion. Although my parents built the house in the 20th century, they designed it to resemble the gothic castles of England. They adored this home. When they built it, they said it evoked fond memories of our old estates.

I see nothing but coldness hidden behind these stone walls. Those fond memories they shared were lost to me. My childhood homes were nothing more than fancy prisons. I think back to mybest friend, Elizabeth. Only a few short months ago, I helped her sell her childhood home. I remember all the emotions she had letting go of that house. All the fond memories she shared with her mother. It’s nothing like the cold castle I grew up in. My childhood home’s halls were not filled with laughter and fond memories, just lies, betrayal, pain, and cruelty.

Everything in me is telling me to leave this place. Whatever my father wants from me is not worth it. However, if he is summoning me, it must be important.

“Right this way, Princess,” Albert says, holding out a hand for me to enter.

Walking into the home, I glance around. Nothing has changed within the last 100 years. The dark stained wood is constant throughout the entire home. Large pillars and arched doors decorate every room. Crystal chandeliers hang from ceilings like earrings. Even the burgundy and black damask wallpaper is still the same.

“Well, if it isn’t my long-lost daughter.”

I turn to find my mother in the receiving room. I walk into the room. She stands as I enter, ever the proper socialite. Her long black hair is parted down the middle and hangs down her back. Her reddish-brown skin is flawless. The black silk wrap dress she’s wearing drapes over her long lithe figure. Even though my mother is nearly 700 years old, she doesn’t look a day over forty-five.

“Hello, Mother.”

She walks over to me with the grace only a royal vampire would have.

“You look…..well,” she says with a sneer. “Does this cheap attire help you fit in with the human world you so desperately want to integrate into?”

There is a lot I could say to my mother right now. I could remind her that if not for my blood and sweat, she wouldn’t besitting in this gaudy ass castle in her expensive clothes, turning her nose up at those she deems beneath her. I could also remind her that a simple call to the council would have her out on her ass, and me living in this gaudy castle.

However, I don’t say any of that, because it’s what she wants. Her only goal in life since the day she birthed me was to get under my fucking skin. Daughters are useless to royal female vampires. Your only job as a royal female is to produce your mate as many male heirs as possible.

Although daughters are useful as a bargaining chip for the father, they have no value to mothers.

Instead of entertaining her need to make me angry, I plaster on a smile and say. “Yes.”

Just then, Albert enters the room with a tray of wine flutes filled with blood. He stops at mother first. She takes a glass and sips. When Albert comes over to offer me a glass, I shake my head no. He bows his head before walking out.

Mother places her light brown eyes on me. “So,” she taps her long, pointed nails against her wine glass. “How is my youngest daughter?”

Rolling my eyes, I say. “Let’s not act as if you care about Marley. We both know you don’t.”

There is a four hundred plus age gap between me and my baby sister. It goes without saying that Marley is an oops baby for my parents. Female vampires remain fertile until they are close to 900 years old. The men can continue to procreate until they die.

By the time a royal female hits her fourth century, she’s usually done having kids. I’m a little late to the party.

Mother shrugs and takes another sip from her glass. “I was trying to be polite. Isn’t that what you love about your pathetic humans?”

Completely over this mother-daughter bonding moment, I ask, “Where is father, Zahra? I have things to do.”